Lucila Godoy Alcayaga (7 April 1889 – 10 January 1957), known by
her
pseudonym Gabriela Mistral, was a Chilean
poet-diplomat,
educator and
humanist. In 1945 she became
the first Latin American author to receive a
Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her lyric poetry which, inspired by
powerful emotions, has made her name a symbol of the idealistic
aspirations of the entire Latin American world". Some central themes in
her poems are nature, betrayal, love, a mother's love, sorrow and
recovery, travel, and Latin American identity as formed from a mixture
of Native American and European influences. Her portrait also appears on
the 5,000 Chilean peso bank note.

The image of Gabriela Mistral is the subject of a recent controversy.
During the 1970s and 1980s, the image of Gabriela Mistral was
appropriated by the
military dictatorship of Pinochet presenting her as a symbol of
"submission to the authority" and "social order".[5]
Views of her as a saint-like
celibate and suffering heterosexual woman have been challenged by
author Licia Fiol-Matta who contends that she was rather a
closet lesbian.
Chilean poet
Volodia Teitelboim has however declared he has not found any traces
indicative of lesbianism in her writings. When the thesis of the
lesbianism of Mistral was put forward in the early 2000s, some of her
personal letters were published showing she had an exchange of
love letters with a male poet.[5]
Mistral had diabetes and heart problems. Eventually she died of
pancreatic cancer in Hempstead Hospital in New York City on 10
January 1957,[1]
being 67 years of age, with Doris Dana by her side. Her remains were
returned to Chile nine days later. The Chilean government declared three
days of national mourning, and hundreds of thousands of mourners came to
pay her their respects.

Doris Dana remained as the
executor of Mistral's works and avoided publishing them in Chile
until the poet was no longer recognized by what corresponded to her
worldly stature. She even received an invitation from the government of
President
Ricardo Lagos Escobar, which she gently declined.

In her will, Mistral stipulated that the money produced by her book
sales in South America should be directed toward the impoverished
children of Monte Grande, the place in which she herself spent the best
years of her infancy. She also requested that the money produced by
sales throughout the rest of the world should go to Doris Dana and Palma
Guillén, who renounced this inheritance for the benefit of the
impoverished children of Chile. The poet's petition could not be carried
out due to decree 2160, which derives the funds to publishers and
intellectuals. The decree was repealed and the profits generated from
Gabriela's works actually went towards the children of Monte Grande in
Elqui Valley.

The niece of Doris Dana, Doris Atkinson, finally donated the literary
legacy of Mistral to the government ― more than 40,000 documents, which
are currently kept safe in the archives of the National Library of
Chile, including the 250 letters chosen by Zegers for their publication.

Her remains arrived in Chile on 19 January 1957 and were watched over
in the central house of the
University of Chile to later be buried in Monte Grande, which was
her wish. Once she mentioned that she would like the hill of Monte
Grande to be named in her honor; her request was carried out after her
death on 7 April 1991, on the day that would have been her 102nd
birthday. The street Fraile hill changed names to Gabriela Mistral.